Southern Appalachian Digital Collections

Western Carolina University (21) View all

Secretary of Agriculture report on watersheds

items 25 of 41 items
  • wcu_great_smoky_mtns-14405.jpg
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  • APPALACHIAN AND WHITE MOUNTAIN WATERSHEDS. 25 from fire and the high taxes on lands with standing timber, it does not pay to cut lightly and protect the land for a second crop. Hence the lumberman cuts the timber as heavily as possible, gets as much money out of it as he can, and then transfers his operations to another tract. It is the same principle as the mountain farmer adheres to when he abandons a worn-out field for a new one. Lumbering is attended with almost as much waste as ever. Actual measurements in average operations of hardwood tie making show that from 75 to 82 per cent of the whole tree and from 43 to 73 per cent of the logs used is wasted. We realize that the waste is enormous when we consider that probably 20,000,000 ties, each containing 2| cubic feet, are cut in this region every year. Railroad ties are only one product. The manufacture of lumber and the making of telephone poles and cooperage stock are attended with waste almost as great. The only industry that uses the forest without much waste is the tannin-extract business, which, while using up the mature timber, is open to objection in that it takes the chestnut and oak forests almost clean, young trees and all. Several active influences are thus constantly operating to reduce the area and deteriorate the quality of the Southern Appalachian forests. Clearing, destructive lumbering, and fire are far the most prevalent and damaging, but grazing, mining, and insects contribute to the injury in a local way. Although the area of the forest is much less than formerly, these agencies are at work more actively than ever before. Their combined influence, if unchecked, is sufficient practically to obliterate the commercial forest of the Southern Appalachians within the next sixteen years. All that is needed for this result is a continuation of present conditions. CONDITIONS IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. TOPOGRAPHY. The White Mountain region is drained by five large rivers—the Connecticut, the Pemigewasset, the Saco, the Androscoggin, and the Kennebec. The watersheds of these streams form a very rough and rugged region broken up into many short mountain ranges separated by deep, narrow valleys. The White Mountains proper, the most rugged and elevated portion, cover about 812,000 acres. Seventy- four peaks reach a height of over 3,000 feet, and of these eleven are over 5,000 feet. The tallest, Mount Washington, rises to an altitude of 6,290 feet, and is among the tallest peaks east of the Mississippi River. A characteristic of the topography is the great irregularity of arrangement of the mountains. With the exception of the Presidential Range, there are no long ranges. The greatest number of peaks are in irregular groups, or isolated. The three main ranges, the Presidential, the Carter-Moriah, and the Franconia, have a general northeast and southwest direction. The Presidential Range is the most important. In it are included nine of the eleven peaks with elevations above 5,000 feet. It is popularly considered as extending only from Mount Madison on the
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